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Charles I of England and Scotland dismissed Parliament in 1629 when he didn’t get his way, and ruled without Parliament for eleven years. During that time, he dredged up every obscure legal precedent in English Common Law to try to finance himself (by that time, Parliament largely controlled the national purse strings). He wanted to install the Divine Right of Kings as a principle in England, to remake the Church of England to reemphasize the top-down power of bishops and himself, and he used Royal and Ecclesiastical high courts to evade the traditional rights of citizens under English Common Law and suppress those who opposed him.

He finally had to call Parliament in 1640 because his attempt to impose a new Book of Common Prayer upon largely Presbyterian Scotland sparked a rebellion, and he couldn’t effectively wage war without Parliament’s greater ability to raise revenue. He ended up fighting a war not just with the Scots but with Parliament, eventually being executed by Parliament in 1649 largely because his endless lies and utter untrustworthiness left no room for any compromise with a monarch who would renege on his word the moment the wind shifted an iota in his favor.

I can’t believe that we now have a President who makes me think of would-be absolutists from nigh on 400 years ago like Charles I. Or that I would gladly trade the current occupant of the White House straight-up for foolish, vain, temperamental Charles Stuart.

Future encyclopedia entry:Donald Trump was a US president from 2017 to mid 2020, when he was impeached. All of his executive decisions were reversed in 2021. In 2019 he received approval to build 200 miles of new fencing on the Mexican border. With no further funding for his border, the local people tore down the fencing in the early 2020s and hauled the scrap metal to metal recyclers in Mexico. Trump died in 2025 at his Florida resort on a golf green. Though usually at least average at putting, he did not make the hole with his last putt.

Tero wrote:Future encyclopedia entry:Donald Trump was a US president from 2017 to mid 2020, when he was impeached. All of his executive decisions were reversed in 2021. In 2019 he received approval to build 200 miles of new fencing on the Mexican border. With no further funding for his border, the local people tore down the fencing in the early 2020s and hauled the scrap metal to metal recyclers in Mexico. Trump died in 2025 at his Florida resort on a golf green. Though usually at least average at putting, he did not make the hole with his last putt.

My bold. I'm pretty sure the jackass has never made his last putt. "That's a gimme".